


three years and a monday

by irene_addling



Series: Consulting Revolutionaries [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BBC Sherlock Fusion, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irene_addling/pseuds/irene_addling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You pronounced him dead, Cosette, you think I don't remember that?"</p>
<p>Three years ago, Paris' only consulting detective jumped off a hospital roof, but the fall can't kill you if you never land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	three years and a monday

It's a quiet night in the morgue. All they've got is one car crash victim, blunt traumatic injuries to the head. All the same, Cosette's knuckles are white around her scalpel, probing at the laceration for glass with more force than usual.  


There had been no word from Combeferre today. It was a Monday, and Mondays at lunchtime are always their days. One call, no more than five minutes--"he's in Budapest, five men to go", "he's in Amsterdam, three". A promise to keep Grantaire safe and money Cosette hadn't earned put into her bank account, and that was that.  


For the rest of the week, she could pretend that Enjolras had died on the pavement in front of Saint Bart's hospital, but not on Monday.  


She checks her phone again. For the first time in three years, nothing.  


The door slams open.  


"You knew."  


She doesn't even have to look at Grantaire, angry in her doorway and flushed with the beginnings of drunkeness, to get what he's talking about. His knuckles are bloody.  


Ah. Ah.  


No warning. She was going to absolutely kill Combeferre.  


"Grantaire..."  


"Three years, you pronounced him dead, you think I don't remember that? And all that time you're getting money, you're contacting him, for fuck's sake..."  


"Have you been drinking?"  


"Not much."  


Cosette walks over and plucks the bottle from his hand, going to pour it down the sink. "I'll be the judge of that."  


He looks too shell-shocked to argue, making one half-hearted swipe at the bottle. Cosette can see his pure anger draining now, replaced with a dazed look in his eye, a stutter to his step that had nothing to do with drink. He gropes at the exam table like he needs the help to stand.  


He closes his eyes. "You knew..."  


"So I take it he's back."  


It takes a long moment for Grantaire to reply. Finally, a slow nod. "Thought I was fucking hallucinating at first, until he had the balls to keep telling me he was real." Grantaire holds up his hand. "Hence this. Our Apollo is nursing quite an ungodly black eye right now."  


Cosette tsked. "Let me look at that. It could get infected."  


"Fantine fainted. Sad she was an old woman seeing things. So I wasn't the only one."  


Cosette exhaled through her nose. That poor landlady. "And now he's..."  


"Back at the apartment, probably plotting more fake deaths with Combeferre. You know, normal brotherly things." Grantaire's tone isn't even bitter. It's just...tired. So tired.  


Tired of a lot of things, Cosette knows. Tired of struggling to stay sober, tired of being alone, tired of plodding along at a small local clinic with no thrill of adventure. Tired of throwing looks over his shoulder for Montparnasse's hitmen.  


Tired of dreaming, dreaming that him and Enjolras are back at the pool, and this time Enjolras points the gun and fires.  


Cosette runs her fingers gently over his knuckles. He winces.  


"Why? Why did he do it?"  


Cosette let out a surprised exhale. "He hasn't told you yet?"  


"Of course not, the bastard. He hasn't told me anything. Just showed up in his idiotic suit like he ran the place."  


"Was he going to, or did you run away first?"  


Grantaire pressed his lips together. "I don't know. I just...I needed some time alone, okay? I thought the person I loved was dead and now he just wants us to go back to fucking normal?"  


There's a bit of anger in Grantaire's voice again, and it's an admission three years too late, but it wasn't like Cosette hadn't guessed. It wasn't like anyone had guessed.  


Well, anyone but Enjolras. 

"Did you ever tell him?"  


Grantaire cringed. "I tried."  


"Did he turn you down?"  


"No, he jumped off a building."  


Cosette tutted. "Grantaire."  


"I'm serious. He told me not to say it, hung up then jumped off a building."  


Now that's a different matter altogether. Cosette's fingers stilled over Grantaire's hand.  


"And you didn't earlier?"  


"Well, before that he was pining over that Eponine lady who beat him and stole his phone, and then we were kind of getting chased by police!"  


Cosette fidgeted for a long moment. "It was to protect you, R. Him not letting you say it."  


"Protect me."  


"They were listening to that phone call."  


"Who, Javert and his professional cockblock squad?"  


He doesn't get it.  


"Three snipers!" Cosette nearly snaps, hands clenching into fists. "One on you, one on Javert, one on Fantine. If he didn't jump, they would have shot. He was trying to make you less of a target. He's spent the last three years chasing down Montparnasse's associates, who I'm sure were aiming their guns at you."  


Grantaire's eyebrow raise is probably out of surprise at first. Cosette never, ever raises her voice. Then it sinks in.  


Grantaire closes his eyes. "Jesus Christ."  


There's the sound of footsteps, coming down the stairs towards the morgue, quick and precise with a click in the heel. Dress shoes, probably, with a measured step. No one wears dress shoes down here except--  


When Enjolras bursts through the door, panting, Cosette takes a moment to mentally congratulate herself on her improving deduction skills.  


"Musichetta at the front desk said you would be down here."  


"Musichetta needs to keep out of my business, then."  


The two men are in a Mexican standoff, two ice sculptures starring down, and Enjolras looks more frantic then Cosette's ever seen him, even after the pool. His dress shirt is wrinkled and his tie isn't even done up properly, like he'd forgotten to clean up after a fistfight. His shoes are smudged with mud.  


"I should go."  


Neither man pays her any mind, really, even when she slips Grantaire a tube of antiseptic with a muttered "clean those knuckles, will you?". The door slams unnaturally loud behind her.  


Halfway up the stairs, something possesses Cosette to turn around. She's helped this story along; now she wants too see how it ends.  


She can't see Enjolras' face from the window, but she can see Grantaire's, and it takes a minute but Enjolras says something and Grantaire just melts, and the two men are rushing together into an embrace that feels too intimate for her to watch. She thinks Enjolras might be tilting Grantaire's face up for a kiss, but she turns around because it's not her business.  


There will be paperwork, no doubt, and fear, and front-page stories, and countless other obstacles, but there's a spring to her step now.  


They're going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> This is what the kink meme does to me. (And the idea of Aaron Tveit in a suit.)


End file.
